


get out the map

by AudreyV



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Boundaries, F/F, Intimacy, Love, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, Pre-Canon, Trust, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-28 15:28:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12609728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AudreyV/pseuds/AudreyV
Summary: They have always been explorers without an atlas.





	get out the map

**Author's Note:**

> Well 4x05 happened and some questions were answered and now I have even more. 
> 
> It’s taking me a while to come up with a finished fic in light of everything we learned, but this little mostly-sweet snapshot just poured out of me. There’s more to come and I’ll be back in Smutland in no time, but for now, here’s something different. 
> 
> Set in a vague pre-canon time.

They have always been explorers without an atlas.

Bonnie didn't remember much about the first time. She knew she was nervous, body full of tension, fingers digging into the sheets to keep herself steady. She remembered gasping with surprise when Annalise’s lips pressed gently against her inner thigh. She remembered feeling lost and weak and loved and like a whole person for the first time in her life.

Before that night she'd cultivated an existence as a sharp mind. Her body was a vessel and little else. She let it slip one unguarded evening and could tell Annalise thought she was pitiable.

Annalise wanted to make Bonnie drop back into her body. Bonnie was pretty sure she wanted that too, but there was no map to guide them around the things that lurked in the darkness. It was easier to be untethered. Being a whole person in a physical form was dangerous and exhausting. Bonnie tuned out the words of her body a long time ago.

“Have you ever…” Annalise began once when they were unwinding after a long day. Bonnie watched her mull over her words.

“Ever what?” Bonnie asked gently when Annalise’s eyes strayed back to the bottom of her half-empty glass.

“It's none of my business.”

“Ask me anyway,” Bonnie pushed.

“Have you ever had sex you wanted?”

“No.” She didn't look at Annalise, couldn't bear to see the judgement (or worse, pity) she knew would be there. “Have you?”

“I'm married,” Annalise said with a low, mirthless chuckle.

“Does that matter?”

“That's a bleak question.” Annalise turned and looked at Bonnie, her expression melting into a softer one. “Yes, I have.”

“Was Sam the first?” Bonnie knew they'd already gone off-road and she shouldn't steer them further into the dark, but she asked anyway.

“No.” A small smile danced across Annalise's lips and Bonnie was intrigued.

“Then who?”

“Her name was Eve,” Annalise said and Bonnie’s face went hot and indistinct. (There was no map for this but she began to see light in the distance and could guess their destination.)

“A woman. Was it… different?”

“Yes and no,” Annalise said. She poured them each another and drank hers while Bonnie traced the silver rim of the glass with her thumb. “She felt safe to me, but I still panicked a few times. There were still times I felt like I was just going through the motions.”

“Even with her you still went back there.”

“Sometimes.”

Bonnie tipped back her glass and let the vodka burn down her throat until all of her felt warm and sad at the same time.

“That's too bad,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“I was hoping it would be different. Then maybe I'd want to… if it was worth it.” Bonnie shrugged like they weren't on a predictable path, winding toward a predictable collision.

“It can be worth it, even if the worst happens,” Annalise said in a honey-warm voice thick with memories. “One of the first times, Eve just held me until it was over. Not too tight, but close enough to feel safe. Flashbacks aren't a walk in the park but it felt so good to know I could be weak with her.”

“You loved her?”

“God, yes,” Annalise murmured.

“So what happened?” Bonnie asked. “Why aren't you still with her?”

“I'm not gay.”

It was like squealing brakes and dirt flying everywhere, a steering wheel slamming hard to the left, peeling away, leaving Bonnie unsure where they were going.

“Oh,” she said as casually as possible.

“It's fine if you are,” Annalise added quickly. “I don't judge, obviously.”

Bonnie quietly pondered the idea, tried to imagine herself in the arms of a generic woman. She conjured a beautiful, kind, smiling face in her mind but felt nothing.

“I don't think I'm anything,” she said finally.

“That's okay too.”

Bonnie nodded. She paused long enough to set her glass down before she crawled over to Annalise's side of the couch and curled into her lap. Annalise rarely allowed her these intimate moments, but Bonnie knew she would tonight, the same way she knew there are no instructions for how to get better when you don't know what “better” feels like.

“I hope I didn't upset you by asking,” Annalise said gently. Her fingers combed through Bonnie’s long hair and stopped every so often to tease out a blonde tangle.

“You didn't.” Bonnie considered their path a moment more before impulsively sitting up. She swung a leg over Annalise's lap and straddled her, gently pushing her back against the couch.

“Bonnie—”

“I'm sorry, I shouldn't— “ Bonnie flinched away and tried to move but Annalise caught both her arms. Her fingers encircled Bonnie’s thin wrists and held her there, her warm, firm grip safe like a guardrail.

“I'm sorry,” Bonnie repeated. “I know you don't want me like that.”

“That's the thing about people like us,” Annalise said softly as she folded Bonnie’s hands together between them like she was instructing a child in their prayers. She covered Bonnie’s hands with her own and avoided her eyes. “Wanting or not wanting and why… it gets all mixed up. Like a map with no key.”

Bonnie waited for Annalise to go on. She felt the heat at the places their bodies connected. Her bare thighs on Annalise’s lap, skin kept from skin by a layer of elegant suiting. Her elbows separated from Annalise’s breasts by one deep breath. Her hands enveloped by Annalise's, the pad of Annalise’s thumb stroking Bonnie’s knuckle, a slow up and down touch that made her stomach flip flop.

“I don't want to take advantage of you,” Annalise said, but what Bonnie heard was everything she wasn't saying.

There was no compass but Annalise would always be Bonnie’s true north.

“I’m not asking you to love me.” Bonnie leaned forward until they were eye to eye, one impulse apart.

“I already do and you know it,” Annalise muttered.

“Then let me be weak.”

 

 

 


End file.
